Competency Three--The special education process, State/Federal special education laws/regulations, and Response to Intervention (RTI)

Competency Three

The Special Education Procescs, State/Federal Special Education Laws & Regulations, and Response to Intervention (RtI)

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As has been previously mentioned, it is vitally important for a school to follow federal special education laws and regulations in order to recieve funding from the government. While this funding is necessary to fund the special education process, failing to follow special education framework laws can make federal funds inaccessible for the general operation of the entire local education agency. 

In order to ensure the students with special needs are assisted in a reasonable way, the federal government has issued basic guidelines and best practices for schools to follow in their handling of students with exceptional needs. One such aspect to ensure adequate assistance is offered to students is the RtI framework. This framework offers a three tiered approach to assisting students. The first tier is the general education tier. This tier is characterized by quality teaching, quality curriculum, and quality classroom management techniques. The teacher utilizes evidence based practices and high leverage principles to ensure students are receiving adequate instruction. If a student fails to succeed in this environment, it is obvious that it is not the fault of the teacher, the curriculum, or the classroom environment. In that case, students are offered more individualized teaching several times a week. This teaching can be in a group and should last for at least 30 minutes each. Sometimes all a student needed was a little hurdle help for a difficult concept and the secondary tier of strategies is effective in helping the achieve. At that point, the students is returned to the first tier of RtI, the general education tier. In the case of a student not proving response to these interventions, the interventions are intensified in tier three. Tier three interventions include smaller group tutoring every day, a focus on educational building blocks that may have been missed, and content that may be grade level or below. 

If the student is still not responsive to the interventions, a learning disability evaluation is conducted. If the student is found to have a learning disability, an IEP team is formed to best meet the needs of that particular student. 

I think it was important to realize the varying levels of support we can offer our students. When what we are doing is simply not working, there are other resources we can try. 

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